I became a bigRachel Housefan courtesy of some of her most well-known titles -Thor Ragnarok,Hunt for the Wilderpeople,Moanaand then some. But the real treat of having House on this edition ofCollider Ladies Nightwas getting the opportunity to focus on her multitude of achievements that might not be in the limelight as much as they deserve - her early work on stage, the emphasis on incorporating culture in projects, her work as an acting coach, how she excels in animation and more.
WithSouldue out on Disney+ on December 25th, House took the time to join us for an extended Ladies Night chat covering everything from her earliest influences to working for two of the biggest animation studios out there, Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios. House emphasized how much she loved both experiences, but did discuss the one big difference when completing her work onMoanacompared toSoul. Here’s what she said about theMoanarecording process:
“WithMoana, I got to go over there quite a lot to record and I loved that. I loved spending time with the people, and Jared Bush was often in the booth with me when we were doingMoanaso he was reading with me and that was really cool. And you know, I got to be there and they’d bring in the pictures of Grandma Tala and Moana, and they’d show me where we were in the story and [these] beautiful drawings, so that was really cool.”
Her voice work forSoul, however, needed to be recorded remotely:
“WithSoulI was just here in Aotearoa, New Zealand the whole time so I never got to go to the studios. Pete [Docter] and Kemp [Powers] were there on the little iPad screen in front of me, but I think I would have loved to have been there with them maybe. But for many different reasons I couldn’t be. It wasn’t a preference by anybody. It was just that that’s how it had to be.”
While House may prefer to do this work in person, she still delivered big through both methods. In fact, Terry wound up being a personal favorite character inSoul. Terry’s dedication to the work and maintaining order in the Great Beyond and Great Before is magnetizing, as is the look of the character and how Terry operates. If you’d like to hear more about House’s experience working onSoul, how she met longtime collaboratorTaika Waititi, the story she’s got cooking for her feature directorial debut and more, you can check out our full Collider Ladies Night conversation at the top of this article!
